The Keepsake

FIVE

Josephine Pulcillo stepped off the city bus and walked in a daze along busy Washington Street, oblivious to the traffic and the relentless thump of car stereos. At the corner she crossed the road, and even the sharp squeal of tires skidding to a stop a few feet away did not shake her as deeply as what she had seen that morning, in that autopsy suite.

Medea.

Surely it was a coincidence. A startling one, but what else could it be? Most likely the cartouche wasn’t even an accurate translation. Trinket sellers in Cairo would tell you any tale in hopes of taking your dollars. Dangle enough money in front of them and they’d brazenly swear that Cleopatra herself had worn some worthless piece of junk. Perhaps the engraver had been asked to write Maddie or Melody or Mabel. It was far less likely that the hieroglyphs were meant to spell out Medea, since it was a name rarely heard except in the context of Greek tragedy.

She flinched as a horn blared and turned to see a black pickup truck crawling along the street beside her. The window rolled down, and a young man called out: “Hey gorgeous, want a ride? There’s plenty of room on my lap!”

One rude gesture involving her middle finger was all it took to let him know what she thought of his offer. He gave a laugh and the truck roared off, spewing exhaust. Her eyes were still watering from the fumes as she climbed the stairs and stepped into her apartment building. Pausing by the lobby mailboxes, she dug through her purse for her mailbox key and suddenly gave a sigh.

She crossed to Apartment 1A and knocked.

The door swung open and a bug-eyed alien peered out. “You found your keys yet?” the alien asked.

“Mr. Goodwin? That is you, isn’t it?”

“What? Oh, sorry. These old eyes aren’t what they used to be. Need Robocop glasses just to see the darn screw heads.” The building superintendent pulled off his pair of magnifying goggles, and the bug-eyed alien transformed to an utterly ordinary man in his sixties, unruly tufts of gray hair standing up on his head like miniature horns. “So did that key ring ever turn up?”

“I’m sure I just misplaced it at work. I’ve managed to make copies of my car keys and apartment keys, but-”

“I know. You want the new mailbox key, right?”

“You said you’d have to change the lock.”

“I did it this morning. Come on in and I’ll give you the new key.”

Reluctantly, she followed him into his apartment. Once you stepped into Mr. Goodwin’s lair, it could be a good half hour before you escaped. Mr. Goodwrench was what the tenants called him, for reasons that were apparent as she walked into his living room-or what ought to be a living room. Instead it was a tinkerer’s palace, every horizontal surface covered with old hair dryers and radios and electronic gizmos in various stages of being dismantled or reassembled. Just a hobby of mine, he’d once told her. No need to throw anything away ever again. I can fix it for you!

You just had to be willing to wait a decade or more for him to get around to it.

“I hope you find that key ring of yours,” he said as he led her past dozens of repair projects gathering dust. “Makes me nervous, having loose apartment keys floating around out there. The world is full of creeps, you know. And did you hear what Mr. Lubin’s been saying?”

“No.” She didn’t want to hear what grumpy Mr. Lubin across the hall had to say.

“He’s seen a black car casing our building. It drives by real slow every afternoon, and there’s a man at the wheel.”

“Maybe he’s just looking for a parking place. That’s the reason I hardly drive my car anywhere. Besides the price of gas, I hate giving up my parking spot.”

“Mr. Lubin’s got a keen eye for these things. Did you know he used to work as a spy?”

She gave a laugh. “Do you really think that’s true?”

“Why wouldn’t it be? I mean, he wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

You have no idea what some people lie about.

Mr. Goodwin opened a drawer, setting off a noisy rattle, and pulled out a key. “Here you go. I’ll have to charge you forty-five bucks for changing the lock.”

“Can I just add it to my rent check?”

“Sure thing.” He gri

I’m the last person you should be trusting.She turned to leave.

“Oh, wait. I got your mail here again.” He crossed to the cluttered dining room table and gathered up a stack of mail and a package, all bundled together with a rubber band. “The mailman couldn’t fit this into your box, so I told him I’d give it to you.” He nodded at the package. “I see you ordered something else from L.L. Bean, eh? You must like that company.”

“Yes, I do. Thank you for holding my mail.”

“So do you buy clothes or camping gear from them?”

“Clothes, mostly.”

“And they fit you okay? Even through the mail?”

“They fit me fine.” With a tight smile, she turned to leave before he could start asking her where she bought her lingerie. “See you later.”

“Me, I’d just as soon try on clothes before I buy ’em,” he said.

“Never could get a decent fit through mail order.”

“I’ll give you the rent check tomorrow.”

“And you keep looking for those keys, okay? You’ve got to be careful these days, especially a pretty girl like you, living all alone. Not a good thing if your keys end up in the wrong hands.”

She bolted out of his apartment and started up the stairs.

“Hold on!” he called out. “There’s one more thing. I almost forgot to ask you. Do you know anyone named Josephine Sommer?”

She froze on the steps, her arms clamped around the bundle of mail, her back rigid as a board. Slowly she turned to look at him. “What did you say?”

“The mailman asked me if that might be you, but I told him no, your name was Pulcillo.”

“Why-why did he ask that question?”

“Because there’s a letter in there with your apartment number and the last name says Sommer, not Pulcillo. He figured it might be your maiden name or something. I told him you were single, as far as I knew. Still, it is your apartment number, and there aren’t too many Josephines around, so I figured it must be meant for you. That’s why I kept it in with the rest of your mail.”

She swallowed. “Thank you,” she murmured.

“So is it you?”

She didn’t respond. She just kept climbing the stairs, even though she knew he was watching her and waiting for an answer. Before he had the chance to lob another question, she ducked into her apartment and shut the door.

She was hugging the bundle of mail so tightly she could feel her heart slamming against it. She yanked off the rubber band and dumped the mail onto her coffee table. Envelopes and glossy catalogs spilled across the surface. Shoving aside the box from L.L. Bean, she sifted through the swirl of mail until she spotted an envelope with the nameJOSEPHINE SOMMER written in an unfamiliar hand. It had a Boston postmark, but there was no return address.

Somebody in Boston knows this name. What else do they know about me?

For a long time she sat without opening the envelope, afraid to read its contents. Afraid that, once she opened it, her life would change. For this one last moment, she could still be Josephine Pulcillo, the quiet young woman who never spoke of her past. The underpaid archaeologist who was content to hide away in the Crispin Museum’s back room, fussing over bits of papyrus and scraps of linen.

I’ve been careful, she thought. So careful to keep my head down and my eyes on my work, yet somehow the past has caught up with me.

Taking a deep breath, she finally tore open the envelope. Tucked inside was a note with only six words written in block letters. Words that told her what she already knew.

THE POLICE ARE NOT YOUR FRIENDS.